Sub-Saharan Africa Healthcare Shaped By Competing Factors

Sub-Saharan Africa's healthcare market will continue to expand at pace with robust economic, demographic and epidemiological drivers in place.

A rising chronic disease burden, large-scale urbanisation, and ageing populations will be major drivers of healthcare expenditure in the region.

Despite this, the region's healthcare markets will remain severely underfunded and the opportunities for drugmakers to exploit this therapeutic space will remain limited to the urban hotspots within cities, with more amenable market conditions.

Forecasts:

SSA's USD85bn (EUR75bn) healthcare market is forecast to expand to USD103bn (EUR88bn) with an 8.0% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) at constant exchange rates (CER) through to 2022. The SSA region is made up of the sub-regions of West Africa, Southern Africa and East and Central Africa. The East and Central African USD19bn (EUR17bn) healthcare market will see significant growth, posting an 8.4% CAGR through to 2022. Similarly, the USD25bn (EUR22bn) West African market will be another key driver of growth in the region, posting an 8.2% CAGR through to 2022, followed by Southern Africa's USD41bn (EUR36bn) healthcare market with a 7.8% CAGR over the same time period.

Rapid Growth Yet Healthcare Outcomes Remain Poor

Sub-Saharan Africa Healthcare Market Forecast (USDbn)

f = BMI forecast. Source: World Health Organization, BMI

The quality and availability of healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa will remain underdeveloped by global standards. Opportunities for generic drugmakers in SSA will be much greater over the coming years and we expect that multinational company interest will remain shifted towards the larger regional markets given the relative levels of economic development. The expansion of universal healthcare across the region will boost utilisation of medical services, yet the rollout of such schemes will be varied in success as financial challenges limit their sustainability. Sub-Saharan Africa's non-communicable disease profile will become an increasingly important factor shaping healthcare market growth over the long term.